NICK’S 4X4 WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG
O
ver the course of 20 years, Nick’s 4X4
Performance Center has gone from
an outlier among the auto shops in
Richmond County, working against the grain
doing work that no one thought could be
successful in this area, to now being at the
forefront of a modern vehicle culture that has
taken over the road.
Back in the ‘90s there were maybe five lifted
trucks in town, said owner Nick Murphy.
Because of that fact, people assumed a shop
dedicated to that type of clientele couldn’t
be successful. But while everyone else joked
about Richmond County’s place in that
industry, Murphy got serious
“I was devoting every ounce of energy I had
to learning this and perfecting it, getting
better,” Murphy said. “They said we’d never
make it, that’s the exact words I heard daily,
‘Richmond County will never support a
4-wheel drive shop.’ That was the fuel, that
was all I needed to keep going. Keep telling
me we can’t do it and I’ll do it. I won’t even
sleep.”
Murphy’s love of vehicles grew out of
mudslinging with friends in his mom’s yard
in the early ‘90s — an expensive hobby if you
don’t know how to fix things yourself. His
friends started bringing him their Jeeps and
trucks for repairs and soon enough he had a
reputation to start a business with.
“People think sometimes that this field is
something you learn in a school,” he said.
“There are some two-year degrees where you
learn the theory and you touch on things but
the only way you’re going to learn this is in
the field.”
On top of this experience, Murphy worked
for a local general auto repair shop after high
school for two years. It was here that he said
he saw the vision for how he wanted to run
his business. He saw the tendency to just put
a part on a vehicle because it needed one
instead of figuring out why the part failed
and preventing that happening again.
“I don’t believe in just putting a factory
replacement part on a vehicle, I want to
upgrade it because if it failed there was
probably a reason. It could be something
that’s common with that model,” Murphy
said. “So upgrading, using after-market parts
and good quality stuff, doing a job right the
first time is what we’re about.”
Nick’s does regular maintenance and
services like oil changes, basic repairs, and
after-market customizing — pretty much
everything but paint and body work. Their
specialty is suspension modifications,
steering and drive train work.
“When I retire and I’m not turning wrenches
for the public at all any more, I will still have
me a little table somewhere in a shop and I’ll
still be setting up gears and axles, I love doing
that,” Murphy said.
The staff of Murphy’s was once six people,
but now it’s down to three: Murphy, Nick Jr.
and Tabitha Reeves. Reeves handles the front,
allowing Murphy to focus on the vehicles,
and Nick Jr. handles the future of the shop --
his dad said he could add a “Jr.” to their logo
once he retires.
“We appreciate the support all these years, it’s
been great,” Murphy said. “We really do have
the best customers coming in here.”
February-March 2020 • 5